East Asian ash
Fraxinus rhynchophylla · Oleaceae · 물푸레나무
How to spot it
The name comes from the water turning blue when a twig is broken and put in it; the white horizontal marks on the bark are characteristic.
Look
- Leaves
- Odd-pinnately compound leaves with 5-7 egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaflets; a hexaploid plant, so leaves vary a great deal. The underside is gray-green with hairs on the midrib.
- Flowers
- From mid-April to mid-May, flowers grow in panicles from the leaf axils of new shoots.
- Fruit
- The samara is 2-4 cm long with a lance-shaped wing and ripens in September.
- Bark
- Bark is fissured lengthwise with white horizontal marks; one-year-old twigs are gray-brown.
Where it grows
- In Korea
- Native
- Native to
- Found in northeastern China and Japan, and throughout Korea.
- Ecology
- Suited to deep, fertile, moist ground, or airy gravelly soil in valleys and along streams. Shade-tolerant when young, it likes sun as it grows and is strongly cold-hardy.
Famous East Asian ash trees in Korea
- East Asian Ash Tree of Jeongok-ri, HwaseongNatural Monument No. 470 · about 350 years · Seosin-myeon, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do
- East Asian Ash of Mugeon-ri, PajuNatural Monument No. 286 · about 150 years · Jeokseong-myeon, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do
- Ash Tree of Gyoha, PajuProvincial Monument · about 150 years · Gyoha-myeon, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do